Seeing Double
by Sassy SOBettes
Summary: For the V-Day Challenge! Things just can't seem to go well for Harry this Valentine's Day. Will our hero prevail in his plans for the holiday? Much panicking, potions, and play-doh!


To Xanne, for the Valentine's Day challenge. Hope you enjoy!

~Ravyn, the Princess Sobette~

**Disclaimer: **Xanne belongs to Xanne, and the rest of the cheerchics belong to the girls that brought them to life, but unfortunately, Harry and the others have already been claimed by J.K.Rowling and the large corporations that control this sort of thing. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Harry looked expectantly around the room, as if his failure to pay attention might result in the horrible dismemberment of all his plans. He'd made sure to stake his claim on the prefects' bathroom weeks ago, spoke to the house-elves so that they would have a romantic dinner sent up, and even plotted to sneak into the Slytherin common room to surprise Xanne. 

In fact, that was the only real problem he was having. He wasn't taking the chance of walking right into the Slytherin dungeon in plain sight – not the lair of Snape, Malfoy, and the team that had proved to be Gryffindor's biggest rival on the Quidditch pitch. However, the only obvious solution to his problem – his Invisibility Cloak – was in the possession of his best friend. 

As if summoned by Harry's frantic thoughts, Ron entered the dorm. "Thank goodness, Ron," Harry began, springing from his bed. "Where is it?"

"Where's what?" The redhead's attempt to be casual failed miserably.

"The Invisibility Cloak!" Harry replied, exasperated. It seemed to him that every second he had to wait was another opportunity for something to go wrong. He wanted this Valentine's Day, the first he would spend with Xanne, to be perfect. 

"Yeah… see, about that…"

Harry felt his whole body tensing in that breath of hesitation from his friend. It was only then that he realized just how nervous Ron looked. "What happened to it?"

"Well, you see… the thing is… er – the thing about the Invisibility Cloak is…"

Harry took a very deliberate breath. "Ron," he began slowly, dangerously quiet. "What. Happened?"

Ron, his eyes on the floor, the freckles dotting his cheeks hardly visible against his flushed face, pulled a tattered, gray lump from behind his back. Harry took the material that his friend presented him cautiously, afraid of what he might find. As it unrolled, his fears were realized: his Invisibility Cloak hung limply in his hands, torn in several places. "Ron, what did you do to it?" Harry cried, shaking it furiously in his clenched fist. He stopped, catching sight of something more. "And what's this stain here?"

Ron's face now turned crimson, and his muttered response was either unintelligible or he'd actually meant to say, "Mimble wimble…"

"I don't believe this," Harry said, throwing the mangled material to the floor and turning away. 

"Look, Harry, I'll fix it, I swear. I'll have it as good as new by this time tomorrow…"

"I don't _need _it tomorrow," Harry responded. He was not so much angry as suffering from extreme anxiousness. "I need it _tonight._"

"It's all right, Harry," Ron said reassuringly. "I'll get you into the Slytherin common room, I promise."

Harry looked suddenly relieved. "Great. How?"

Ron's face screwed up uncertainly. "I don't know. I just meant I'd help. You're the big hero, you come up with a plan."

"Me? I'm the Boy Who Lived, not the Boy Who Comes Up With Fantastic Ideas On The Spot! Do you think I'd have faced an imminent and painful death this many times if all my ideas were good ones?" Harry sighed. "Where's Hermione when you need her?"

Ron snorted. "Probably researching potions in the library. It's only a holiday, after all, why stop studying?"

"Potions!" Harry exclaimed so exuberantly that Ron jumped, looking at him in an almost frightened manner. "That's it!"

"What's what?"

"That's how I'm going to get in the Slytherin common room – by being a Slytherin!"

"Harry, last time You-Know-Who tried to kill you… did he maybe hit you in the head a little too hard?"

"Hurry, you're wasting time. Go and get me a piece of Slytherin."

"A what?" Ron sounded thoroughly disgusted, but Harry was already shoving him out the door. 

~*~*~*~

Normally, the making of Polyjuice Potion was not easy. It required lacewings flies that had been stewed for twenty-one days, and the meticulous addition of other hard to find ingredients, such as powdered bicorn horn and fluxweed picked during a full moon. However, as he slaved over a potion in the shadowy corner of an empty bathroom, Harry did not worry about this. He had a secret ingredient, something that no one else would have thought to add to a potion, but something that was sure to work for him.

Harry had play-doh.  

~*~*~*~

"So, Xanne, can we expect our resident hero pay a visit today?" Akasha asked, grinning broadly from where she sat with Flint's arms around her. 

"What are you talking about?" Draco responded for her, sprawled in a leather chair by the fire. "We're all right here." At this comment, he gestured about the common room, met with the smug grins of his fellow Quidditch players. Ravyn, however, only smacked the back of his white-blond head. "What are you doing?" he demanded, glaring up at her indignantly. 

"Be nice, or I'll do it harder next time."

Resent was quickly replaced with an impudent grin. "Is that supposed to be a threat or a bribe?"

Meanwhile, the other girls had taken up asking Xanne what she and Harry had planned for that evening, but she persistently told them nothing. "I don't know," she said, somewhat sullenly. To be honest, she'd been rather disappointed when Harry had continuously avoided her hints, and even her more direct method of questioning. 

She remembered clearly taking a seat across from him in the library, taking the book from his hands, and tilting his chin until their eyes met. "Harry, darling," she said, dangerously sweet. "What are we doing for Valentine's Day?"

He'd adjusted his glasses, faint pink spots appearing on his cheeks. His eyes had wandered while he replied, "Oh, I don't know…"

Xanne had sighed and looked at him less than fondly. What more could she have done to get through to him, held up a flashing sign while dancing naked and reciting bad poetry in an obnoxiously loud voice?

Sitting there amidst the happy Slytherin couples in the common room, Xanne mentally smacked her forehead. She sighed to herself, thinking dryly, _I should have held up a flashing sign while dancing naked and reciting bad poetry in an obnoxiously loud voice_. Maybe then she wouldn't be the only one of her friends who had no apparent plans for Valenine's Day…

"You must be doing _something_," Kate insisted. 

"Yes, Harry may not be in Ravenclaw, but he's smart enough to know not to hack off a Slytherin," Malice commented. 

"Especially not one of us," Fallon said, with a grin that could be described as nothing less than evil. Next to her, Warrington was nodding knowingly. He knew from experience what would happen if Harry didn't show up soon.

~*~*~*~

Harry dropped the single hair that Ron had delivered to him in a rush into the pot of dull brownish liquid that boiled sluggishly. It frothed and turned a pure Slytherin green. Ron had plucked the hair from the back of Blaise Zabini's robe as he passed the Slytherin in the hall. He'd taken meticulous care not to lose it on the way back to the Gryffindor tower, desperate to make up for – well, for ruining Harry's Invisibility Cloak. 

A bitter smell reached Harry as he poured the green liquid into a glass, and he hesitated for a moment. He'd been through this before, and was in no hurry to endure the less than pleasant experience again. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, thought of Xanne and downed the liquid in one gulp. 

The glass fell from his hand, shattering in a spectacular display on the ground. He fell against the wall, clutching at the cold tile in agony. The skin of his hands began to reform before his eyes, taking on a new shape; it was strange, he thought, in a detached sort of way, to look on his own hands and not recognize them. And then a wave of nausea came over him so strongly that he could think of nothing else. 

And then, quite suddenly, it was over. He realized that it hadn't hurt quite as much as last time, and thought that it had not been as drastic a change. Blaise was not that much bigger than he, with much the same build. Although, he didn't feel quite tall enough…

Harry stepped out of the shadows, taking off the glasses he no longer needed to look at his new disguise in front of the mirror. What he saw almost made him more ill than the potion itself had. "No," he whispered to himself, and the voice was frighteningly familiar. "This can't be right." Was Ron playing some sort of sick joke on him? No, no one would do something as thoroughly disgusting as this. Something must have gone wrong with the potion… could it have been the play-doh? 

He tore off his Gryffindor robes – the sight just didn't look right. Besides, he couldn't stroll into the Slytherin common room in Gryffindor robes. Especially not like this. He half considered running to Hermione, begging her to find him an antidote, anything but waiting for the potion to run its course. However, reason took hold in his panicked mind, and he decided that he didn't want to see Hermione's reaction to seeing him like this. She'd probably slap him. He decided to take his chances. After all, it was just one hour, right?

Right?

He opened the door slowly, silently, and peered into the hall. It looked clear, so he stepped out. No sooner had the door shut behind him than a group of Hufflepuff first years rounded the corner. They froze when they saw him, nearly trembling in terror. He stalked past as if they meant nothing, glancing at them only long enough to glare. He wasn't quite sure why, it just felt natural in this form. He made his way down the dungeon stairs and managed to find the entrance to the Slytherin common room, but had to lean against a wall trying to look casual until someone came along who could let him in. 

The opportunity came when a third year boy spoke the words that would reveal the entrance in the dank dungeon wall. He seemed a bit nervous when Harry started after him, glancing over his shoulder several times before escaping down the stairs to the dorms. Harry, however, didn't really notice this. He'd already caught sight of the one thing he'd wanted to see, the one person who could motivate him to see this through. 

Xanne Malloy was sitting on a leather couch alone in the corner, flipping idly through a _Cosmos _magazine. He watched her for a moment, among the Slytherin crowd, watched the way her hands carefully turned the pages and how every so often she'd pause to brush a strand of short, black hair from her eyes. She paused suddenly, seeming to sense his eyes on her, and suddenly, her gaze locked with his, and she started to speak. 

He found that in that moment all he wanted was to hear her speak…

However, he was sorely disappointed when all he got was a dry, "What do _you_ want, Malfoy?"

~*~*~*~

The others had left Xanne one by one – or, in the case of some of the Quidditch team and cheerchics, in pairs – until she was alone on the couch. Somewhere in the back of her mind she held out some hope that Harry would still come through, but for the most part she was just bitter. What kind of prat didn't remember Valentine's Day? Honestly, even if he had defeated the Dark Lord and was famous all over the wizarding world... He could have at least sent her some chocolates.

She glanced up suddenly, feeling someone watching her. Her first conscious thought was that somehow Harry had gotten into the Slytherin common room unnoticed, but she knew how unlikely that was. Just as she'd thought, she found not Harry's green eyes, but the steel gray eyes of Draco Malfoy on her.

"What do _you_ want, Malfoy?" she snapped, her eyes trailing back to the article on certain enhancement charms that she derisively thought she and her fellow cheerchics would never need. He was still silent after a moment, which was unusual for Draco, and she looked back up at him. "Have you gone deaf, or have I suddenly been deemed unworthy to associate with?"

He jumped visibly, and his reply was unsure. "I… er, I just wanted to –  see you."

"What, me?"

"Yeah."

"Now?"

"Yeah."

"Don't you have plans?"

He looked quite blank, something she couldn't recall Draco ever having looked before. Snarky, yes. Smug, yes. Even arrogant as hell. But never blank. "Plans?" he questioned.

"Yes, plans. With Ravyn."

"Ravyn?"

She looked at him with something slightly more Slytherin than pure astonishment. Something was definitely wrong with Malfoy. "Yes, Ravyn. Ravyn, your girlfriend. Ravyn, the girl to whom you might as well be surgically attached at the lips.  You must have done something really dumb to piss her off this time, or you'd have something better to do than stand there and repeat everything I say."

"Oh, right. Her…"

She laughed a bit scornfully. "Honestly, Malfoy, what's wrong with you?"

"Nothing," he replied, coming over to where she was curled up on a couch. His manner was almost cautious, which just didn't seem right. "I just wanted to see you."

"So you said." He sat down next to her, seeming quite unsure of himself. At first, he sat quite close to her, and then, hesitating, moved away, and moved once more to finally settle himself at a comfortable distance.  "All right, just get it over with," she said impatiently. "What do you want, Malfoy?"

"What?"

"You'd never be acting like this if you didn't want something. What is it?"

"I – er…"

At that moment, the door to the common room opened once more, and in walked – 

Xanne blinked, looking again just to be sure. No, there was no doubt about it. Ravyn had just come in, and behind her came Draco Malfoy. 

She leapt from the couch, glaring accusingly at the imposter Draco next to her. Unless, er… perhaps the other was the imposter and the real Draco had been sitting next to her acting as thick as one of his one henchmen. Either way, there was a lot of explaining to be done.

From the entrance, Draco and Ravyn had obviously seen what was going on. Ravyn's eyes grew quite wide, jumping from Malfoy to Malfoy. The Draco who'd just entered didn't seem happy about finding himself sitting in his own common room. "What the bloody hell is going on here?" he demanded.

Xanne's foul mood had returned, and she was now more annoyed than surprised. "That," she said, "is what I'd like to know."

~*~*~*~

"All right, one of you own up," Xanne said. She and Ravyn sat across from the two Malfoys, looking them over suspiciously.

One of them – the Draco sprawled casually in a chair near Ravyn – spoke up almost immediately. "I can't believe you're even asking this!" he said indignantly. "How can you possibly think that that's me? He looks nothing like me! He's podgy, he looks about as Slytherin as a first year that's just been Sorted into Hufflepuff, and just look at his face! My face isn't that pointy. He looks like a rodent."

"A ferret, perhaps?" Xanne suggested, but Draco had no time to do anything but glare before Ravyn spoke up.

"Draco, he looks just like you," she said calmly.

"He does not!" Draco scoffed, settling back in his seat resentfully.

"All right, no one's questioning the fact that you're Draco, Draco," Ravyn told the sulking Slytherin in a reasonable voice. "In fact, if any one in this room couldn't tell that, they obviously don't belong here. And while we're on the subject of not belonging here…" She paused to look pointedly at the other Draco. "… would you care to tell us who you really are?"

The Draco-who-was-not looked at the two girls unsurely. He wouldn't have hesitated to tell Xanne what he'd done. He really wouldn't have even minded telling Ravyn. But somehow, admitting what had happened, even if he hadn't meant for it to happen quite this way, in front of Draco Malfoy, was something Harry couldn't bring himself to do.

"In retrospect," he began, his eyes meeting Xanne's, "there probably really was a better way to do this…"

However, once more the opening common room door interrupted them, and in strutted Pansy Parkinson. She stopped dead at the sight of the little interrogation, her eyes so large she resembled a house-elf. Her jaw worked for a moment, and she pointed dumbly at the two white-blond boys that met her sight, but nothing coherent managed to escape before she quite promptly fainted. Those who followed her into the room, however, seemed more interested in what had made her faint, stepping over the limp blond figure in the middle of the stone floor. 

Warrington was the first to speak, smirking at the scene. "I guess someone's going to have fun tonight, eh, Ravyn?"

Flint, who had entered along with Warrington, Fallon, and Akasha, looked blandly from one Malfoy to the other, saying nothing more than, "Well, Malfoy, with two of you, maybe you'll finally manage to catch the Snitch before Potter."

While one Malfoy shot out of his seat in angry protest, the other only grinned. It was hardly the smirk that most were used to seeing on Draco. In fact, Xanne thought to herself, the smile looked much more like Harry than Draco…

"Anyone care to tell us what's going on?" Akasha asked from the door once Draco had been silenced. Ravyn commented that no one was quite sure yet, but at that moment, Xanne didn't seem aware of anything but the boy in front of her. 

"Harry?" she whispered so that the others, absorbed in their own conversation, wouldn't hear. He smiled, nodding. "Harry, you must be insane! What are you doing here, and why – just, why?"

"I told you," he replied just as quietly. "I just wanted to see you."

"You turned yourself into Draco for me?"

"Yes, I guess I did."

She smiled. "That's so romantic," she said. "Well, in a twisted soap opera sort of way."

He shrugged, less and less like Draco with each passing second. "I've lived through worse," he remarked, adding more soberly, "And I'd do any of it again for you."

She was grinning now, and when he smiled back at her, his eyes were not cool gray, but a soft, warm green. The potion was wearing off. Acting quickly, she took him by the hand, rising and making her way towards the common room door. The others paused when they walked by.

"Oi," Warrington called out. "Where are you two going?"

Xanne paused, grinning broadly. "I just need to teach this guy a lesson about what he's just done."

This answer didn't seem to satisfy the Quidditch players, but the girls in the group all wore knowing smiles. As Xanne turned back towards the door, Fallon coughed pointedly behind her. When she turned back, the dark-haired girl held out a small vial of steaming gray liquid. Xanne grinned her thanks.

"Happy Valentine's Day," Fallon said quietly.

"Yes," Xanne replied, shoving Harry through the door before her. "It is now."


End file.
